


27 July 1967

by scioscribe



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: M/M, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They decriminalized it today, Jeeves—not that you don’t know that already.  I know the dead aren’t supposed to have a jot of knowledge about the world below, but I can’t imagine that goes for you: in fine print of every King James, I’ve no doubt, if closely examined, it says “except for Jeeves.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	27 July 1967

**Author's Note:**

> Fanlore has it that there are already plenty of stories with this same theme, but I couldn't find them and equally couldn't get the concept out of my head, so I wrote it in the hopes that it could coexist peaceably with its fellows and stop making me almost cry at work.
> 
> ETA: Thanks to tinsnip for making me realize I meant "Wolfenden" and not "Wolverton."

They decriminalized it today, Jeeves—not that you don’t know that already. I know the dead aren’t supposed to have a jot of knowledge about the world below, but I can’t imagine that goes for you: in fine print of every King James, I’ve no doubt, if closely examined, it says “except for Jeeves.” I couldn’t know a thing before you did. The mind repels the very thought.

But anyhow it’s done. You said it would be, after Wolfenden, that all we had to do was wait.

I want to take it in the proper spirit, Jeeves, I do, but I’ve opened the horse’s mouth and counted its teeth and all I can conclude of the nag is that it comes three bloody years too late. “Thanks,” says Bertram bitterly towards Parliament. “Jolly good, much appreciated. Might have done it a bit sooner.”

The next edition of the books that come out might say, beneath the spiffy photo at the back, that Bertram Wooster lives in London with Reginald Jeeves, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it, could even have appended “in quite a cozy one-bedroom flat, and stuff anyone who minds.” Think of that, Jeeves. I might have mentioned you rakishly in interviews.

I might have kissed you in the street.

Oh, but you would have hated that, though: something about legality not altering impropriety, at least as far as public opinion is concerned. I would of course not give a damn about p. o. But you would keep your hand out of mine as we strolled just as you would throw out a white dinner jacket—don’t think I’ve forgotten that, Jeeves, for I mourn it still. You would say that I mustn’t look ridiculous.

I wish I could argue with you about it. I think, Jeeves—just this once—I think with the faintest creeping suspicion that I would win. I could not imagine your heart being in it.

Just today, I would tell you: just let me kiss you today and we’ll sort the whole rest of it out later.

Only we never did get the chance, and I’m stuck here, three quiet rows of humpbacked stone from another chap who is as intent as I, doubtless going through the same rigmarole with his own dearly departed, and another one five ahead and four to the left. It seems to be the going business of the day. I tell you, Jeeves, if I were a flower-seller, I would make money hand over fist today catering to sniffly blokes fresh up on their news. At least it’s a good day for such. If I play it out this maudlin in the nice balmy clemency you were always going on about, I am loath to think how I would rend my clothes in front of your inscription if the horizon threatened rain.

I thought of writing a letter to the editor about you, Jeeves, only the last book came out years ago and I’m lumped in with Nancy Mitford—what a devil of a time you had getting me parted from her, do you remember that? And then out came _Love in a Cold Climate_ and it turned out we might have just explained—as one of those charming but slightly doddery relics of ages past, everyone’s great-uncle, and thinking of how it would have been if Aunt Agatha had turned straight to me, given me the gimlet eye, and pronounced herself a one-time enjoyer of Sapphic delights, I am inclined to demur—that, and I think of you, and how hard it would have been to coax you into just one kiss in clear view. You wouldn’t care to be set down black and white and naked in the Sunday papers—if they’d even print such a thing. Scandal sells, though, there’s that to think of. You have that on your conscience, Jeeves. Whatever poor circulation totals are jotted down rest on no other head.

But I had to tell someone and you were, for reasons plain to see, the obvious candidate, though I suspect I’ll see you soon enough to tell you in person. My heart has gotten awfully fluttery of late—still winged, but quite the lame bird. The sporting hunter would shoot out of pity. It’s just as well, for I miss you terribly. 

I’ve lived a long life, Jeeves, and I’ve seen more than I ever could have dreamed I would, and I was lucky enough to see most of it with you, and I’m keen on remembering that, so I don’t grow quite as soul-cramped and barbed-wire-encrusted as Aunt Agatha in my last days and rail against the news each time it reminds me that the Americans are having what they call a Summer of Love. I won’t ask what happened to ours and why what was coming to us came so late. I will close my eyes and think of you.

In my mind, in my heart, Jeeves, we’re always young, we’re always somewhere green, with dappled shadows of leaves, and never any war; it’s always just after some scrape that’s already taking on shades of the comic. The gardens have that birdsong quiet and all happy couples but us have adjourned to the house, just as Shakespeare would have written it, and we are alone in this gossamer moment, this sunlight, this time. And I'm turning to you, and there you are. There, simply, you always are.

So how can I complain, Jeeves? We had our summer, too.


End file.
